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Focus on The ICTR: The Defence Perspective
The UN International criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR) has a few years to go and discussions about its legacy
for the International Criminal Law has started. While some perceive
that Tribunal as a major advancement, others, including defense laywers,
who have been defending genocide suspects for last fourteen years, think
that this ICTR and other ad hoc courts, have created a regrettable precedent.
The legality of the ICTR is still being discussed, even as the Court’s closure is drawing near. In this regard, the laywers and scholars who spoke during the conference converge to qualify the setting up the ICTR by the Security Council as an abuse of power.... Go to the thematic reports |
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Rusesabagina: ‘Rwanda back to ethnic servitude system’
The Hotel Rwanda hero, Paul Rusesabagina is worried about the direction Rwanda is taking, especially with an unfairly managed reconciliation process through popular tribunals known as Gacaca. Rusesabagina denounces that system, where judges are illiterate and have no understanding of laws. He is more upset about the so-called public interest labour that replaces jail sentences for repentant genocidaires, which reminds of, and resembles the banished feudal system known as Ubuhake. This report was made on 25 April 2009 in The Hague, where Rusesabagina held a lecture in front of 500 people at the Hague University. He was one of the two keynote speakers at the yearly Africa Day event organised by the Evert Vermeer Foundation. Rusesabagina once described himself as ‘an ordinary man’, but he has since 2004 become a world celebrity due to the film Hotel Rwanda that featured his risky and courageous rescue operation during the 1994 genocide. Read more Also view: The 26 April 2008 Hague special conference on peace |
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Rwanda 2010: Another Kenya? Another Zimbabwe?
The 2010 polls in Rwanda promise to be different from the 2003 ones. No candidate is officially known but there is little doubt about president Paul Kagame running for another term, as the Constitution allows him to do so. There is also little doubt about opposition leader Victoire Ingabire’s ambitions. For her, things are yet to go through bureaucratic and administrative procedures that might pose serious problems. She has first to back to the country she left 15 years ago, and where those she fights politically are the masters of the land. Ingabire seems to have started her European campaign. She is going from one conference to another. From one lecture to another. International media are dedicating long reports on her, which is rather making her popular at least among the Rwandan diaspora and the Westerners. But these will not take part in the election! She will have to conquer the Rwandan populations inside Rwanda, a country she describes as a land of anguish and repression. This video report is about the lecture she held on 15 April 2009 at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She was invited by the United Nations Students Association to discuss Rwanda’s history and politics, as well as her presidential ambitions. Read more |
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Rwandans can talk. They need a platform
Experts have been cogitating about the virus that infected
Rwanda and is obviously resisting any cure. Others rather think that they
have identified the microbe and are fighting it using the Gacaca system
among others. Yet others think that the virus has no cure but rather remedies
that can render it inoffensive. I have already given my view on that virus
in an article with the title ‘Memory
Crisis: What Rwandans Remember and Forget’. My analysis remains
the same, namely that Rwanda and Rwandans are making themselves victims
of their past. The successive leaders of Rwanda have failed to go beyond
their ethnic memories, which they turn into history. They also turn it
into the absolute truth, taught in school, preached in media (film, radio,
tv and papers), and backed by judges, whether trained on non trained.
However, one thing needs to be noted in addition to my above-mentioned analysis: the conflicting memories – the true deadly virus – can be spoken about and confronted. The debate that took place in The Hague on 6 April 2009 in the framework of Amnesty International’s Movies that Matter Festival, gave me a golden occasion to test my theory. I managed to interview both some Tutsi who survived the 1994 genocide and lost their loved ones in it and the Hutu survivors of the RPF massacres who also lost theirs in the same year. I asked them three questions: Is the Gacaca system contributing to the reconciliation process? Is justice rendered for the RPF Hutu victims? How will Rwanda be like in 2020?... Read more |
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Interview with FDU-UDF chairwoman Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza 18 - 01- 2009
The next presidential elections in Rwanda are about two years away but the opposition in exile is already getting ready for them. The Unified Democratic Forces (UDF) have already announced their participation and are even optimistic. Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza heads that organisation and has been presented by Dutch and Belgian media as UDF candidate. That is not the case, at least for the time being, says Ingabire in an interview that I am pleased to present in several parts covering Ingabire’s biography, democracy and governance in Rwanda, genocide and ethnicity, UDF’s relations with other organisations, and their diplomatic relations, including Ingabire’s meeting with Barack Obama. Go to theme-based excerpts TRADUCTION FRANCAISE: Alors qu’il reste encore à peu près deux ans avant les élections présidentielles, on s’y prépare déjà, surtout du côté l’opposition en exile. Les Forces Démocratiques Unifiées, FDU, viennent d’annoncer qu’elles allaient y participer et sont même optimistes. Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza est à la tête de cette organisation et a été récemment présentée par les média surtout belges et néerlandais comme étant candidate des FDU, ce qui n’est pas tout à fait vrai, du moins pour le moment, comme Madame Ingabire me l’a dit dans l’interview que j’ai le plaisir de vous présenter en plusieurs parties, touchant notamment à la biographie de Madame Ingabire, à la démocratie et à la gouvernance au Rwanda, au génocide et à la question ethnique, aux relations entre les FDU et les autres forces politiques, ainsi qu’à leurs relations diplomatiques, y compris la rencontre de Madame Ingabire avec Barack Obama. Extraits thématiques |
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Africa resists financial hurricane
As the Dow Jones desperately keeps going down, and Western banks keep navigating in troubled waters, Africa is firmly resisting and her finances and economy are said to be healthier than ever. “In Togo we are not dealing with the crisis”, T. Gnasosounou of Cauris Investissement, told me in early October in The Hague. His understanding of the current crisis is that there is much liquidity in the West but ‘bankers don’t know how to use this money’, while ‘in Africa it’s the opposite’. “The crisis is not affecting us at all”, adds F. Swai of Akiba Commercial Bank in Tanzania. She explains that this immunity comes from the fact that none of the collapsed or collapsing banks have no chapters in her country. However, she adds, the Central Bank of Tanzania is consulting with commercial banks to strengthen regulations. The urgent issue now is to know how long African banks will stay in calm waters in a globalized and market-based world economy |
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Rwandans discuss peace Page
Hundreds of Rwandans met on Saturday 26 April in the Dutch Capital the Hague to talk of Peace in their country. I should rather say to talk of peaces as the notion of peace is viewed differently by the Hutu and Tutsi communities. On the one hand, Hutus from all over Europe and a number of Europeans, were patiently and silently queuing in front of the ICJ, where a heavy police presence could be seen. On the other hand were Tutsi protestors, who were having banners announcing that the Peace Palace, the seat of the UN Court of Justice was not appropriate for the Peace Conference. Unfortunately, protestors refused to answer my questions, preferring to direct me to their leader who had their official message. Paul Rusesabagina, the man who inspired the Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda was the key speaker of the day The public was given a chance to ask questions, even though many of them remained unanswered... Go to the 26 April 2008 conference on peace page |
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Special page for the Conference on Ferdinand Nahimana's book Rwanda les virages ratésDossier Spécial Conférence sur le livre Rwanda les virages ratés de Ferdinand Nahimana
Hervé Déguine was head of the Africa Desk at Reporters Witohut Borders in the early 1990s. He particularly followed the case of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines and contributed to the charging of its initiators. Déguine is currently completing a biography of Ferdinand Nahimana, one of RTLM founders. He admits having been manipulated and having belonged to the Blancs Menteurs, to borrow the words of Pierre Péan. Regarding the latest book by Nahimana, Rwanda: les virages rates, Déguine criticizes it as being below the usual level at which Nahimana writes. Go to the Nahimana book conference page |
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Interview with Major General Patrick Cammaert
Major General Patrick Cammaert is optimistic as to the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he served as deputy commander in chief of the Peace Mission until February last year. The Dutch general says that the DRC armed forces should be careful with their attacks on insurgent general Laurent Nkunda and the FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group also operating in the Eastern part. Cammaert admits that military pressure is needed, but adds that it should prepare the ground for political talks both with Nkunda and the FDLR. |